Marmot: an optimizing compiler for Java

• Published in: Software, practice & experience Vol. 30; no. 3; pp. 199 - 232
• Main Authors: Fitzgerald, Robert, Knoblock, Todd B., Ruf, Erik, Steensgaard, Bjarne, Tarditi, David
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chichester, UK John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 01.03.2000
• Subjects: compilers; Java; language translation; optimization
• ISSN: 0038-0644; 1097-024X
• DOI: 10.1002/(SICI)1097-024X(200003)30:3<199::AID-SPE296>3.0.CO;2-2

The Marmot system is a research platform for studying the implementation of high level programming languages. It currently comprises an optimizing native‐code compiler, runtime system, and libraries for a large subset of Java. Marmot integrates well‐known representation, optimization, code generation, and runtime techniques with a few Java‐specific features to achieve competitive performance. This paper contains a description of the Marmot system design, along with highlights of our experience applying and adapting traditional implementation techniques to Java. A detailed performance evaluation assesses both Marmot's overall performance relative to other Java and C++ implementations, and the relative costs of various Java language features in Marmot‐compiled code. Our experience with Marmot has demonstrated that well‐known compilation techniques can produce very good performance for static Java applications – comparable or superior to other Java systems, and approaching that of C++ in some cases. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.